


The Coffee Shop at the End of the World

by kitsune13tamlin



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Black Out, Gen, Post-Season 2, Shiro (Voltron)-centric, astral plain chilling, coffee written about by someone that doesn't like coffee, where in the world is Takashi Shirogane?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 03:58:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14887208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitsune13tamlin/pseuds/kitsune13tamlin
Summary: We all want to know where Shiro went after season 2.  Well, he went - here.  We just don’t know exactly where here is exactly.





	1. Chapter 1

He’s not sure how he got there. One moment he was in Black, fighting Zarkon - beating Zarkon - the blazing sword formed, the explosion that he felt inside his chest as much as against Black, the release

and then nothing.

Here.

He must have passed out. He doesn’t know for how long. But he woke up on the floor - ground - whatever it is and when he opened his eyes everything was blue and black and purple and green and

and he recognized it.

The astral plane. Sitting up hurt but it was the twinge of old aches and that worried him. How long had he been out that the aches had grown old? A quick glance around and - yes, he recognized this place. There was the giant black void he’d never decided if it was a dead moon in eclipse, a dead sun, a black hole…. there was the streaked, aurora boralis sky, clouds reflecting light from the ground below despite the lack of actual light…. the distant glint of stars so clear they still had their colors….. and the forever plain that went on beyond the horizon like a thin slick of water over a dark stone surface, reflecting the sky above without ever actually being wet or feeling slick like a mirror would.

“Black?”

He hauled himself to his knees, pulling off his helmet as he looked around, feeling lost and hollow inside his chest. He’d only been here twice - and it was because Black had taken him there, the first time unwilling and the second with his whole-hearted enthusiastic agreement. 

But there was no giant lion outlined in alien night sky, not even the faint outline trace of one, no answer to his call, and he remembered how Black had disappeared as he and Zarkon had fought.

“Zarkon!” it was a challenge and a snarl and he got to his feet, turning a full circle a little unsteady, wondering if the defeat on the physical plain had plunged the Galra leader here and somehow seen him dragged along with it. Ready to fight all over again even if he was bone tired.

But there was no mockery, no giant purple armored monster and Shiro stopped looking after the first two circles. It wasn’t like the other Black Paladin to hide. Not when he loved announcing himself so much.

“Black?” Shiro tried again, tipping his head upward, searching the sky now the way he’d searched the plain, reaching down inside himself for their link, finding it - and finding himself unable to tug at it.

“Black!” No answer. “I have to go back. We’re not done. Everyone still needs us!”

No answer and the sudden cold in the pit of his stomach might as well have been words.

‘Us’? Maybe Black was still there. Maybe it was only Shiro left behind. Maybe -

but no. Black wouldn’t abandon him, wouldn’t turn away from him again. They’d broken Zarkon’s power, and then taken the bayard. Black was free and there was no reason for the lion to reject him now. 

….no reason at all….

“Black!” he screamed it to the endless sky

and there was no answer.

He listened to revirb echoes fade into nothing, waited. Waited. Waited until the silence was a weight, was a lack, stole the air out of his lungs and compressed them and his throat closed over and he found himself torn between wanting to vomit and wanting to scream. He shut his eyes, felt that the lashes were damp, tipped his head to the sky and forced himself to draw in measured breathes between his teeth. Kept doing it until they slowed down to a normal level. His skin felt cold, as if he’d been sweating and it had dried clammy. It was almost an afterthought when he crammed his helmet back on his head, an instinctive move to reassure himself he was still the Black Paladin, that he hadn’t disappeared into becoming nothing. The solid enclosing weight of it helped and he realized:

“Keith? Princess? Pidge, Lance, Hunk? Coran?” the HUD visor was offline but he tried it anyway, toggling the various channels manually with the bottom of his thumb against the cheekplate. Was even desperate enough to try, after a very long hesitation:

“Slav?”

Considering his situation he shouldn’t have felt relief when there was no answer to that last one - but he still did.

“Kolivan, Antok, anyone?”

No one.

He took his helmet off and stared into it for a long time, holding it cradled upside down in his hands like a bowl or a broken egg shell. The silence of the void was like the rush of waves far away, starting to become something he could almost hear and he knew it was just his ears trying to fill in sound where there was none.

“No.” He said it quietly and without any heat. Rubbed his thumb over the embedded microphone in the lining of the helmet. Resolute he pulled it back on. He didn’t have the benefit of giving up. Setting his jaw, he started flicking through each channel, sending the same message, voice steady, over and over again:

“This is Takashi Shirogane, pilot of the Black Lion, paladin of Voltron. If anyone can hear this, I’m trapped on an astral plain and need to get back to my team. I’ll monitor the channels regularly. Please respond and if possible get word to Voltron and Princess Allura in the Castle of Lions. This is Shiro, paladin of the Black Lion. Please respond.”

He went through all the channels three times, pausing after each message was sent to listen to the dead air until it hurt his ears before moving on to the next one. He doubted it made any difference. He didn’t know much about where he was but somehow he suspected that the ‘not reality’ of it probably meant no communications in or out. He kept at it all the same. He didn’t know for certain it wouldn’t work - and it wasn’t as if he had time he was wasting.

Was it all over? Did they win? Was Voltron no longer needed and that was why he’d been tossed here? The blood payment for the price of the universe’s salvation? That seemed -

it seemed to make him being here far too noble and dramatic a sacrifice and his mind tended to push that kind of thing off to the side as unlikely. No. If he was here it was either an accident - something he was willing to believe considering he hadn’t even been aware Black could phase through solid objects until recently and his only experience with it had been pure instinct and trust in his lion - which was fine, but not a very safe or sensible standard procedure -

or he had been dropped here intentionally. Either by Black or by Zarkon. He was fairly sure Zarkon was toast - but what if it had been some last second attack? Something that had been a dying jab that had made it though and ripped him free of his body.

oh God.

His body….

Zarkon had said that if he died here, he died in reality. What was the team thinking, finding his unresponsive body in the pilot’s chair? Did his body beathe while he was on the astral plain? Did it have brain function? The panic set in so fast he thought his heart was failing and he went down to his knees, hand pressed hard over it. What if they thought he was dead? What if they spaced him or cremated him or sealed him in an airtight bag for transport back to Earth?

“Black,” it came out in a choked whisper and ran along the connection between them. “Please. I can’t stay here. Come - come get me. Please….”

His ears strained -

but there was no roar, not even a distant one, and no shuddering earth from impact as the lion landed.

there was no response at all.

“Black - “ he hated the way his voice broke on it and he shut his eyes and curled forward into himself, tucking small and squeezing his eyes shut hard. Minutes passed. Or maybe it was hours. Finally he managed to sit back up. Put the helmet resolutely on and started his way through the channels.

“This is Takashi Shirogane, pilot of the Black Lion, paladin of Voltron. If anyone can hear this, I’m trapped on an astral plain….”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> back at it again with the kicks on the astral plain.

Shiro walked in circles.

It wasn’t unintentional circles at least. Yes, he probably should have stayed in the same place and waited for someone to come find him - but he had no guarantee anyone was even looking for him.

That anyone even realized he was lost.

If they had his comatose body, they’d have no reason to assume his brain was somewhere else. That he was somewhere else. So unless someone figured it out, which would be a long stretch of logic where there were so many other, more sensible reasons there might be an unresponsive body in his pilot’s chair - or Black came back for him - and he was still holding onto the weak sliver of hope he had there - it was up to him to rescue himself. Staying in one place wasn’t getting him anywhere and who knew how long he was going to be stuck here. So the logical thing was to go looking for an exit. Shiro wasn’t sure how you exited the astral plain without a lion to tug you along. Zarkon had done it but Zarkon had been backed by a witch and probably juiced to the gills with quintessence and -

and, until Black came back, Shiro had only himself.

So he decided to see how far he could explore before his legs gave out. 

That meant spirals.

Taking his starting place, leaving his belt behind to mark the spot - as if he would ever be able to find it again in a place as endless and landmarkless as this seemed to be - he began a slow steady spiral walk outward from it, an ever enlarging circle. It let him cover the widest range of territory the most thoroughly. Survival training had been a part of his Garrison time. Not that anyone really expected you to survive if you were lost in space or stuck on a planet. Limited oxygen and an encroaching vacuum tended to limit your time and most of the focus was on finding a way to either fix the problem so you could save yourself, get a signal to anyone nearby that could send help or at the very least leave a record of what went wrong and make your corpse easy to find. Shiro remembered his training though. It didn’t seem likely he’d run into a road or a river here but he had nothing else to spend his time doing but looking and maybe, just maybe, there was something out here he could use. Either to connect with his team or find his way back to them. The horizon stretched as far as the eye could see in all directions and it sure looked empty but he had nothing else to spend his time on, walking and broadcasting over the dead channels as he walked, as much to hear some kind of noise in this empty place as in hopes of it actually getting out to anyone.

He would have given a lot for a working watch. He had no idea how fast or slow time was passing and, with the unchanging sky, he was starting to swing between feelings that he’d been here forever and ones that it was only a few minutes. He’d gotten that before - in prison - but even then there had at least been some kind of routine to help him keep track of things.

“Don’t take too long, Black,” he commented to the missing lion. “Getting me back when I’ve gone crazy won’t look good on either of us.”

There was no response and the dark joke dried on his lips.

Why was he here? Why wasn’t Black responding? Those were the only real questions but dwelling on them was more damaging than helpful. Until he got more intel, he wasn’t going to know the answers and the answers that currently presented themselves -

hurt.

Reminded him of how it had felt to be tossed out of Black when Zarkon had taken over the first time, the utter rejection he’d felt, the rebuff of everything he’d tried to make himself become so that he wasn’t just

prisoner

17-9875

weapon…

The Black Paladin wasn’t any of those things. He’d thought he could remake himself from what he’d been turned into. Thought he could fight what others had done to him and reclaim himself. Make himself better.

Make himself someone worthy again.

Black’s rejection had hurt. Even after he’d learned it was Zarkon’s doing - his mind had recognized it but his heart hadn’t. Black’s rejection had felt like a personal rejection. A reprimand for trying to be anything but what the Galra had made him.

What he’d let himself become as their prisoner…

not worthy of being a paladin

trying to cover his inner rot with a fancy dressing of good deeds over it

a monster….

They’d gotten past that though. Black had showed him what had really happened, what it had been like, what the lion had truly been at its prime and what it wanted to be again. They’d fought Zarkon, together, and Shiro had realized that no matter what he had been, what he had done, the lion wanted him still. That Black believed in him. Chose him. Wanted him.

The Black Lion had found its wings again with him.

And yet - there was no Black Lion now. He could feel it, still feel the connection between them and yet - why hadn’t it come? Why, when he called it, in this place that should have been its home, an easy door for it to step through - didn’t it come?

They had been completely one during the battle, breathing each others thoughts. How could he have broken that? What had he let slip from his core that had broken that?

He stopped.

Blinked.

Straightened.

Nothing. There had been nothing. They’d been as one. He remembered the surge of lion through his veins as he’d used the Black Bayard for the first time. The blazing sword. And -

The realization hit so hard, he almost sat down. And then he realized he was alone and no one was there to watch so he did sit down.

If Black wasn’t coming for him -

it was because the lion couldn’t.

 

The answer was so obvious he forgot to breathe as it sank in and yet -

He bowed forward, pressed his face into his hands, dug his fingers into the skin and bone of his skull

and he laughed.

It wasn’t a happy laugh. It was a painful dry one that hurt his chest. But - how stupid he was. How self-centered. He’d been chewing at being abandoned because that’s the way it felt - instead of looking at the facts and previous patterns. Black had chosen him. Black had trusted him. Black had found its wings again, together they’d taken back what was Black’s. What was his. They’d defeated Zarkon. Broken the Galra stranglehold on the Galaxy together. 

Black hadn’t abandoned him.

Black couldn’t get to him.

“I’m sorry,” he said it, voice soft and thick. Sent it along the link between them as he rubbed at his temples and then the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry, Black. That was selfish of me. I’m sorry.”

There was no response along the link but -

maybe that wasn’t either of their faults.

Shiro tipped back, rested his hands behind him for balance and leaned back, looking up at the false stars above. Let the bitterness, the sorrow, the helpless trapped energy, the guilt, the loathing, the belittling, the anger, exhale out of him, breathing slow and deep until he felt better. Then he stood up again, testing his helmet on his head out of old Garrison habit and pulled in one more deep breath.

“All right,” outloud to the waiting air. “Then we keep trying.”

Orienting himself - the stars might be fake but they held a pattern and he’d been careful to memorize it - he started walking again. But this time his eyes were on the horizon and what was ahead instead of the ground, determined. There had to be a way out. Somehow. Because he refused to accept anything else. He’d find it. The others - and Black - were counting on him.

And yet he completely missed the slight dip in the featureless ground in front of him until he tripped - and kept falling long past ground level.

Somewhere, far away, as he fell through darkness, he heard the chest deep sound of a lion roaring.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they don't teach you about this kind of thing at the Galaxy Garrison - ie. things just got weird. Er. Things got weirder.

He falls.

His eyes squeeze shut and his arms go out to catch him, bracing for impact, ready to roll with it if he needs to. Brain firing the half second it takes to wonder what the hell he managed to trip over in the middle of the astral plain.

Except there’s no impact with the ground and his eyes fly open in sudden panic, because all he’d done is trip and the ground shouldn’t be that far away, sudden astronauts horror of, somehow, being tossed into space and falling forever in the darkness between the stars with nothing to grab and no gravity to catch you back, nothing but a quickly drifting corpse slowly shredded apart by space debris and radiation from stars that are lifetimes away.

But the ground is still there, still rushing toward him and he squints, body tensing -

and he keeps falling.

Falling far past the time it should take for his body to close the distance from his head to the ground, falling far past the time it should take for his legs to untangle and hit his knees. He’s falling, he can feel himself falling, and yet the ground isn’t getting any closer and he’s reminded, stupidly, of a Monty Python movie and two guards at a gate watching Lancelot running toward them and he resists the urge to turn his head and look at the world next to him because he’s afraid that’s the second reality will snap back into place and he’ll suddenly impact.

He smells roasted coffee beans and sugar, almost hears the ring of a bell hanging on a door, feels the wash of memory and homesickness so strong he loses focus on the night sky mirrored ground rushing toward him -

and he hits. Hard. It knocks the air out of him and he rolls with it, tucking up to protect himself instinctively even though there shouldn’t be anything for him to roll into on the vast empty of the astral plain. Except he does. Coming to a stop with another grunt against something thin that tumbles over on top of him and he’s on his feet in a second, grabbing for it, ready to throw it as far away from him as he can before it can grab him back -

chair. It’s a chair. His hands left a crack in the frame of it and Shiro pulls himself to a knee, staring at the wooden restaurant style chair in his hand for a full second too long for survival in the Arena. His head finally turns, eyes wide, worried, scanning -

the smell of roasted coffee beans and pastry hit him in the face before his eyes even register it, an underlying smell of dish soap and floor wax. It - smells like a coffee shop.

His eyes lie to him. Tell him it looks like a coffee shop. His ears hear the high ting of metal on ceramic cups, the hiss of steam from a espresso machine, the old time crunch of a cash register.

The look on several patrons faces as well as the staff behind the counter as they look at him in various expressions of surprise and expectation. He hauls himself to his feet. Belatedly remembers to set the chair gently back on its feet and tuck it into the table it had been at before he’d rolled, apparently right through the front door, into. No one says anything to him, slowly going back to their own lives as if someone falls/rolls in through the door every day. He looks outside the windows of the cafe and sees -

a dark sky with a swollen dead eclipsed moon, ground like a mirror as it reflects back broken light and stars….

“Where am I?” he asks it as he turns back around, half expecting the cafe to be gone. But its still there and some of the people - aliens - they’re all aliens and he thinks it says something that he’s gotten so used to seeing aliens that his mind automatically thinks of them as nondescript as it thinks of other humans - they make odd faces, like they’re sad or tired or sympathetic and more than one jerks appendages that pass for fingers over their shoulders at the counter and the cash register.

He thought he understood what surreal meant.

He hadn’t until this moment.

Hesitant, he walks over to the counter, to the patiently expectant alien standing behind the counter. Its even got a dark red apron on with a little gold name tag in an alphabet he can’t read. He remembers the team telling him about the space mall and how familiar so much of it had seemed but -

this is the astral plane. He turns his head and outside the windows the dead moon or sun still hangs heavy in the perpetual night sky. He inhales, straightens his shoulders. It - this - it could be a trap of some kind. Something inside his brain or someone playing mind games with him. Because it doesn’t make sense. And yet - what can he do for the moment but play along?

“Hi,” he starts it off, has to clear his throat at the gravel in his voice and he wonders how long its been since he used it. The creature behind the counter gives what he assumes is an encouraging smile and nods. Shiro mentally pulls himself together, pulls down the ‘paladin’ persona as if its a full body mask and his shoulders straighten even more, so that his back is almost painfully stiff, reaching up to remove his helmet and tuck it under his arm in the crook of his elbow.

“My name is Shiro. I’m a paladin of Voltron. I need help contacting my team. Can you help me?”

The creature behind the counter bubbles something at him, liquid purring bumping noises through the whiskers that are like feelers over its mouth and its wide eyes swivel in their sockets. It makes a motion with its hand flipper, a soothing, downward series of slow swishes and turns away to -

make him a coffee.

He watches, caught somewhere between annoyance - and the insane urge to just start laughing. Except he’s afraid if he starts laughing he might not be able to stop. But it putters around, filling up the mug, setting it in the foamer, adding what looks a lot like drizzles of chocolate sauce - and despite himself his mouth waters at the idea of real honest to God chocolate flavor - sprinkles of something else on top, brings the whole thing back to him and sets it down on the counter between them. He resists the urge to repeat himself. Some cultures have customs about food or drink, about guests and when business is allowed to be conducted and what needs to be done first. Not just in the galaxy but he’d learned that one Earth too. In some cultures, nothing serious gets discussed until after a meal or tea at least have been taken. Its frustrating. Finally running into something else alive and interactive after however long of wandering the plain makes him want to grab the barista and shake them hard, demand answers. Like what the hell is a coffee shop doing in the middle of the end of eternity? 

But he takes the mug with a nod and a small smile instead. Not sure if he’s supposed to offer payment or if that would be considered insulting. It is a coffee shop…. the creature waves a flipper at him, scooting him off to clear room for the next being in line and, a little dazed, a little annoyed, a little…. comforted? Shiro wanders off a little ways to find a table. Sits at it. Sets his helmet on it next to him. Tells himself he needs to come up with a game plan, that if there are beings here than there must be a way in and out, a way to communicate with the outside galaxy. He needs to -

he needs to drink the delicious smelling coffee before it gets cold. Which is stupid and silly and a lousy priority to have but -

damn

when was the last time he had real coffee? Made up or not, inside of his head or not, trap or not, fairy food or not, he lifts the cup to his lips. Inhales the smell and its hot milky coffee and chocolate and - cardamon? all steamy air against his nose tip and down his throat into his lungs. His throat tightens up, another surge of homesickness and a thousand gallons of terrible Garrison sludge coffee nostalgia and he takes a sip.

It hits his tongue like heaven and slides soothing and right down his throat and for the space of a slowly nursed cup of coffee he forgets everything else. For that period of time he’s home and there are cherry trees dropping their petals outside the windows and the music of his native language in the air around him and air thick and rich with green exhaled oxygen in his lungs and nothing hurts or needs his immediate attention or someone might die or aches inside his chest in a constant steady ache of knowledge that somehow, whether he knows what or not, he’s done something wrong. He shuts his eyes against the damp in them and sips his coffee and listens to the noise inside his head. Somewhere, far far away, he thinks he feels Black, curling around him like a gas giant around its small iron core.

He doesn’t open his eyes again until the mug is empty, stomach full of warmth, chest warm and relaxed as well and somehow he’s no entirely surprised to see the barista has taken up a seat across the cozy round table from him with some kind of bubbling drink in its flippers, watching him with calm eyes.

“Thanks,” it comes out without any prompting and he means it deep from the core of him. Even if its about to do something terrible to him - for just a moment, the entire galaxy was all right and he can handle whatever comes next now, feet feeling more firm on the ground than they have in a long time. The creature bubbles something back at him, low bouncing throat grunts and seems to relax in its own seat.

“Everyone needs delicate. Who falls through.” The words were bubbles, low and softly popping, shaped around moving feelers around its lipless mouth. It waves a flipper gently at him again and he realizes it has multiple arms but keeps most of them tucked back against its back like ridges of fins for the most part. He has so many questions to ask and isn’t sure, suddenly, where to start.

“Falls through? From the astral plain? Or - is this even on the astral plain?”

Bubbles softly pop.

“Falls through from reality. Outside is the universe, the ocean of it and this is one of the many holes in its surface.” Flippers weave briefly before settling. “Sometimes things fall in the holes. Sometimes they find their way here. The coffee is good.”

The large eyes rotate in their sockets, color shifting and he suspects it was a joke. Smiles, just a little, despite himself.

“How do I get back?” he asks. “Out of the hole?”

The arms undulate against the creature’s back.

“No one knows.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aaaand done! Just in time for season 6.

“But there is a way.” He says it and he has to believe it. The creature - barista - sitting across the table from him claims this is a hole in reality and the beings that fall through don’t know how to get out but -

but there has to be a way. Because Shiro may appreciate the free coffee - and the potential baked goods he’s seen in the display - but he doesn’t belong here.

Not that he’s, still, even sure that ‘here’ is really here. Sometimes the mind interprets things it doesn’t understand in a language it can. It would be - really strange - if every alien race in the room knew what a coffee shop was. That line of thought should bother him more - except he’s got bigger problems than whether his body…. spirit?…. is actually floating in a vat of space goo and deciding a coffee shop sounds more sane.

He has to get home.

Home to his friends, his team, his lion. Home to a war that might still be going on.

Home - to where he belongs.

The coffee cup creaks in his hands and he realizes he’s holding it too tightly, forces himself to relax his hands, watching the alien across from him. Who is watching him back and seems to be waiting until he’s focused again.

“Probably,” it burbles the hope at him, mouth feelers moving around the single word as if it is precious and dangerous at the same time. "Sometimes a disappearance - or walk out the door and don’t come back. How it is done, no one knows. No one comes back to tell.“

Shiro latches on to that. This isn’t a one way trip. There are ways out. He just has to find them. And if others have, by accident or otherwise, than he can too.

There’s so much more he wants to ask. About the passage of time here, about aging and death, about where the food comes from. How a multi-limbed alien knows how to make such incredible coffee. But his mind tells him that, whatever this place it, the cover of it, whatever it is that’s letting him enjoy coffee and half-silent relaxing music and the soft clink of spoons on mugs and the rustle of turning book pages - he doesn’t want to know what’s on the other side of that. That he’s found a refuge and poking at the walls of it, possibly very thin walls, might break it and let through what’s really on the other side. Shiro’s an explorer, its his nature to poke - but he’s also a strategist, and he knows getting home is more important than potentially making himself go insane.

He…. has a healthy fear of going insane. These days. He thinks he’s been too close to letting go, sometime in the before that his brain refuses to let him remember and - there’s a selfish part of him that is fine with his brain deciding that. He hates it and yet - there’s the small coward part of him that is relieved. He looks at the creature across the table from him. Offers a small smile.

"Thanks. For taking the time to help me.” A thousand questions. But - “What happens if I walk out that door?” His head tilts to the front door he came through and the creature’s head tips as well in mimic. Its eyes whirl inside their cornea, slow.

“The Void is there. Your Void. Whatever Void you found.” A set of arms move against its back, perhaps a shrug, perhaps restless, perhaps something else. "And we are still here.“ A spread hand to indicate the denizens of the shop, scattered around at different tables, drinking their drinks, writing notes, reading tablets, talking low to each other. "Once found, the door is easy to come back to.”

“Thank you.” Shiro takes his helmet when he stands, offers his hand and the alien hurries to stand as well. Clasps his forearm with overlong fingers and Shiro feels something pulse between them. How did you end up the keeper of a reality warping place like this? By being here longest? Or by never having been anywhere else? His mind flashes to 'in his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu lies dreaming’ - and he smiles, a little tired, a little crooked, but real. Cthulhu doesn’t serve coffee to lost travelers. Or at least the fictional one wouldn’t. He lets go of the clasp and pulls on his helmet, more for the mental feeling of it - there’s work to do - than because he thinks it will start working.

“Wish me luck.”

The multifaceted eyes whirl and the feelers over the mouth move.

“Success in all your endeavors, Champion.”

Shiro’s eyes go wide and his face loses all expression. 'Champion’. That’s not his paladin title or his name. Its the name the other slaves called him in the Arena. He hesitates on the question, looks closely at the creature in front of him and - does he recognize them? Is there the sound of crowds in the back of his head, roaring for blood, the smell of metal and sand and bile and feral animal panic in the air? Is that the same face in front of him, bloody, light fading from its eyes as it dies under him? His stomach lurches -

and the eyes whirl slow and calm back at him and all he smells is coffee and sugar and baked yeast in the golden light of the cafe. He opens his mouth. To apologize? Ask the question? did I kill you, once upon a time? To protest or cry. But no sound comes out and the alien leans down fluidly to pick up his empty coffee cup. Taps a finger against its side and the sound of ceramics chiming softly is soothing. Normal. Too mundane and natural to be dead or abstract. Shiro gives its face one last look and his memory won’t slot it home, yes or no -

and he heads for the door, hesitating a moment before he pushes it open. If he leaves - what if he can’t find his way back. What if he steps out and its the astral plain with its dead sun in the midnight sky and nothing else?

He’ll be alone.

Except the answers aren’t in the cafe or someone would have already found them, and he tucks his head just a little bit and pushes the door open, hears the soft tinkle of its bells, and steps outside.

The silence is so complete and deafening after the low subconscious hum of life inside the cafe that it almost echoes. Fear shooting through him, he turns back -

and almost slams his nose into the door.

Its still there. Just - a door. Nothing else. Just like a thousand cartoons and fantasy novels. The proverbial door standing by itself in the middle of nowhere. He even lets himself indulge and circle it and nothing stops him. There’s the back of the door of the shop, showing the inverse Borealis of violet and black through its glass. He opens it from the back, half expecting to see the coffee shop’s interior, half expecting to see whatever it really is that’s there when its not pretending to be a coffee shop - before he can stop himself

but its just the same view of the astral plain through the arch. His astral plain since it sounds like the 'Void’ may have different forms for each of them. He doesn’t step through though. He doesn’t know what the rules of this place are - but….. thresholds are for transition to something new and he doesn’t want to accidentally get so deep into layers of the astral plain that he’s even harder to find. If such a thing exists. Its superstition barely remembered from his childhood and yet -

he shuts the door and walks back around to the front of it the way he came. The Galaxy Garrison never prepared them for trips to the astral plain, and like so much else in his life these past few years, he’s making it up as he goes.

“Black?”

The call echoes - but there’s no roar of response, no thunder or shaking rumble as the lion slams down to land near him. The warmth in his chest from the coffee and that brief connect he either felt or imagined with his lion stays though. Reassures.

Not quite sure where he’s going, he starts walking again, throwing glances over his shoulder to make sure the door stays put, flipping through channels on his helmet with his usual mantra just to give himself something useful to do. Distance goes vague on him fast. The door diminishes to a warm glow about half its size - and then refuses to shrink any more in the purple gloom no matter how much more he walks. Its reassuring despite knowing it shouldn’t be. The stars in the sky and the dead sun overhead never shift either and finally he sits down. Walking doesn’t do any good. Well, it feels good but it doesn’t actually get him any progress. There is a way out of here though. Others have found it or fallen back through it. He just has to figure out what it is.

So he does what has always seemed to work in the past, what he was too chaotic inside and lost feeling to do before a warm mug of cardamom coffee. He shuts his eyes and inhales deep and lets it out slow and quiets down all the noise inside his head. He finds his focus. And this time when he reaches out, slow and from somewhere deep in his lungs, he feels

“Black….”

The relief he feels is like the proverbial ton of bricks has suddenly been lifted off his shoulders and he sits up so quickly and so straight that it almost loses the connection. Which is - wrong. He feels how wrong it is and he knows its not him that feels it. The connection is weak and he has to catch at it, like wisps of cobweb floating in the air. That’s not right. Its not right at all. And he can feel Black’s struggle to hold on to him just as much as he’s struggling to hold on to Black. Its not a barrier between them, its

there’s no strength. Its a loss of power. And for a minute he thinks it must be him. It must be him that’s not doing something right, that’s had something inside himself broken, perhaps, finally, irreparably. Something he lost in that last battle or didn’t do that he should have except -

no

he feels it down through the bond. The reassurance, the gathering close, the solid eternal endless assurance that is the Black Lion. It knows its exact place in the universe and everything else revolves around that one spot. And it has chosen him. He is still Black’s paladin and no other. The problem is not with him.

His waver hardens back into determination. It’s not him. Which means he can do something about it. So he reaches deep, into the core of himself, past all the cracks and dark stains and hiding shadows in the corners and he pulls up who he is to give back to his lion. He is Shirogane Takashi. Pilot of the Galaxy Garrison. First son of House Shirogane. Pilot of the Io Rescue, the Venus Disaster, the Kerberos Mission. He is the head of Team Voltron and the Paladin of the Black Lion.

Shiro.

The connection hums with the new energy he feeds into it and he feels Black accept and absorb his core surety. Feels the power flow through the lion as if its almost around him for a moment, as if he were almost in the cockpit and his hands reach out automatically for the controls. But the feeling fades as quickly as it came and he feels the headache in the back of his skull, low and close to the base of it. Knows the feeling because Black always drains energy out of him when he pilots it. It feeds him - but more than once its needed so much from him that he’s passed out afterward. He isn’t going to lose now though. Not when he’s finally made his connection. So he buckles down, pours more of his own strength and energy into the link between them and he’s rewarded by opening his eyes and seeing -

Black’s cockpit. Except, even as he jerks forward in relief and joy - its from the wrong angle. He’d looking from the view screens inward and

he’s sitting in the pilot’s chair.

For a minute the vertigo hits so hard that despite being desperate to keep the connection he has to shut his eyes, squeeze them tight and breathe through his nose at the way the world spins. The coffee in his stomach lurches, reminds him that all that acid is sitting there with no food to cushion it and he has to swallow hard and focus. Its like space sickness but at least this time if he does vomit it won’t be in his helmet.

A few steadying breathes and he can open his eyes again, feel Black curled protectively around him even if the lion is faint. He’s not letting go though and so he grits his teeth and pulls up more of his energy, his human fuel reserves, pouring them into the link. If something is wrong with Black, if the lion doesn’t have the energy levels it should - than Shiro will make up for that.

They’re a team.

As if the thought gives an energy all its own, Black responds with a sudden rush and Shiro’s back in the cockpit again, looking down at himself.

“Lance, Hunk, on me!”

He recognizes the voice and winces, never having liked the sound of his own voice outside his inner ears no matter how many TV interviews he had to listen to himself give and then -

but no. This isn’t a memory. He and the team have fought dozens of battles together but Shiro doesn’t remember those maneuvers, doesn’t remember a time when he used those moves and had those two teammates in tow for them. He racks his brain, trying to find where he’s forgotten something but even as he does his eyes are moving, searching -

what’s wrong with his hair?

That’s not - he knows his own reflection. Even days when he doesn’t recognize it when he looks in the mirror, haggard and exhausted and outside of himself, he still knows what it looks like. And there’s something subtly wrong about this one. His white tuft should be visible, at least some of it, even with the helmet’s visor entirely down. And - the sideburns seem…. longer? The face looks the same. Same nose, same scar, same eyes but -

“That’s….. not me….” he whispers it, knows that’s a crazy thing to say and its much more likely that his mental issues are blocking his recognition than the fact there’s actually a doppelganger -

but Black washes through him again, deep and sad and lonely and protective and weak.

“That’s not me,” he’s more willing to believe it with Black’s reassurance than he was himself and he feels their connection threaten to break entirely, catching onto it just before it unravels and hanging on desperately. No wonder Black doesn’t have the strength to cross to the astral plain and get him. No wonder their connection is so fragile. It snaps even as he thinks it and he has time to cry out

“Black!”

before he’s back on the plain again, cold and empty, head feeling as if someone is trying to split it right in half. He leans forward across his folded legs and wraps his arms tight in against his chest. Black is flying with half a pilot. That must be it. It’s his body - but he’s not in it.

So who is?

Or its not his body…..

and the question stays the same.

Someone that is not him, is acting like him, and leading his team.

The fear for them, the panic that they’ll get hurt because they’d do things out of trust for him that their common sense would never let them do on their own, sweeps hard through him and he reaches out instinctively, needing to remake the connection, needing to do something to warn them.

Except the pain spears right down through him when he tries and he must black out because the next thing he sees when he opens his eyes is the magenta and shadow sky above him, the edge of a dead swollen star at the edge of his vision and it takes him a long time to roll himself over onto his side and back up onto his knees.

There. That’s his answer at least. That’s why Black doesn’t have the energy for the astral plain. That’s why no Altean magic or tech has tried to reach through to save him. That’s why he isn’t able to go back. 

Because he’s already there.

Or someone is.

Briefly he wonders if they found another him from another dimension, as Slav was always so fond of talking about. But no - hopping dimensions is impossible or ten thousand plus years worth of science would have surely figured out how by now. He runs his hand through his hair and then across his face, displacing his helmet as he does. Absorbs what he’s just been given and rides the first wave of despair and panic and fear, letting it come but refusing to let it pull him under. After its eased up he focuses on what he does know.

He can still connect to Black. Black knows him. He needs to get back before his team gets hurt.

He’s drained completely of energy.

For a long time he stays on his hands and knees, building determination and strength back up and then he gets to his feet and staggers back to the door of the cafe that has somehow ended up behind him. It takes longer than he knows it should to get to it, but it never wavers, never fades. When he finally pushes through he has to swallow down the sob of relief at the warmth of the golden light and the light jingle of the door bells and the welcoming scent of coffee and sugar in the air. There are closer tables but he still bee-lines for the one he now thinks of as 'his’ and its unoccupied as if waiting. He hits the chair hard as he drops down into it and the last thing he remembers to do is take off his helmet again and set it near his ear before his head hits the top of the table and the cushion of his arm and he’s out like a light, asleep in a position his body remembers from years and years of Garrison studies into the late night hours to catch a chance at the stars.

He dreams of voices, just around the corner of one of the Castleship’s hallways, sounds he’s following lazily but each time he rounds a corner, they’ve already moved on and are just around the next corner. The sounds of his team, his friends - his family - happy and chattering, Allura’s rounded vowels and Lance’s drawn out words, Pidge’s bursts of punctuation and Hunk’s low easy rolls against Coran’s clipped chipper ones. They’re happy and relaxed and enjoying themselves and it makes his chest feel full and content, hearing them. But no matter how much he listens, he can’t catch what exactly it is they’re saying -

and he can’t hear Keith’s voice at all.

He wakes up with a stiff neck and there’s something white in his vision as he blinks his eyes open. The next inhale fills his lungs with the scent of coffee and he wonders which exam he’s fallen asleep studying for this time before he catches a glimpse of a tentacle shifting on a tabletop several tables over and remembers. He sits up slow, finds its a coffee mug he’d been staring at for the first and the same alien that had been at that table last time still there for the second. It makes him relax for some reason, the familiarity of the 'face’ even if he doesn’t really know the other being. Testing with his fingertips tells him the coffee mug is still warm and he lifts it, appreciative to find its matcha instead and the smell of fresh green grass washes over him so strongly for a moment he can feel the oxygen rich sea wind against his face and hear the soft whisper of tall grass blowing around his calves on a hill top near his childhood home town. His first sip spills over his tongue like liquid spring time and he shuts his eyes until he’s slowly finished the entire cup. Opens them again to find himself smiling softly, feeling peacefully lazy and it strikes him that the memories each cup gives him are stronger than any he’s had before.

“It’s the exchange,” the barista is in front of him again with several muffins on a plate it sets down as it sits down across from him at the small table and Shiro makes a questioning noise even as he can’t stop himself from reaching greedily for the muffins. How long has it been?

“The memories. They make the drinks. And the drinks make the memories.”

“And you read minds?” Shiro ends up with a poppy seed and lemon muffin but he hopes he gets to hoard the entire plate of them. Somehow the being must be able to. This is all a little too perfect, too spot on for an Earth cafe and not an alien that had once seen an Earth cafe and was interpreting it. Eye colors, mostly ambers and greens, whirl slow at him and a hand somewhere on the alien’s back moves in a vague wave. 

“Whispers. Flavors. Sharp stabs. The drinks are the only things that are solid as they bloom.”

Which must be true because the muffin is heaven - but it doesn’t evoke anything other than taste pleasure as he eats it, trying to do so slowly to savor it instead of inhaling it. Shiro should be more surprised - or alarmed - but he already knew things weren’t what they seemed here and so far this is the kindest, gentlest place he’s found himself in since he left Earth. 

“You’ve always been here? And the rest?” a gesture to take in the other aliens. The barista turned its head to looked and the feelers over its mouth moved absently.

“Maybe. Sometimes I think I am real. Sometimes I think I am the necessary dream of this place. Every other being is here from elsewhere. I am always here. They see their own places here and I see what they see when I am near.” The eyes come back to him and spin softly. "Yours is very nice.“

Shiro offers a pumpkin muffin to his companion and the alien takes it with bemused puzzlement, holding it up to its feelers which delicately tap over its surface before the entire muffin disappears into them. Shiro thinks he should have mentioned taking off the wrapper first but its too late now and its the thought that counts he supposes when you’re eating imaginary food. He goes for the strawberry and white chocolate one next himself.

"Is it strange I think some of my friends would really like this place?”

-ro! Shiro! Shiro!

His head snaps up, muffin falling out of his hand and he snatches up his helmet in almost the same move, pulling it desperately on.

Shiro! Shiro!

Not the helmet. He takes it back off so fast it hurts his ears but he needs to be able to hear. So faint but - he can hear their voices. His team! He can hear his team calling him and it tugs at him, violently wrenching from somewhere in the very center of his chest. He can hear their need. They need him. And they need him now!

He’s on his feet in an instant, turning to bolt for the door, helmet forgotten behind and spinning on the table, clearing a chair someone had left pushed back without even needing to think about it. There’s no time - and there’s no hesitation.  
His team needs him. There’s never any option but to go to them.

Shiro!

He doesn’t even know if he clears the door or not. Just that - suddenly - he’s in a circle with them and he can feel them. The way it feels when he connects with everyone to form Voltron. There’s that wonderful, incredible, empowering surge of feeling each and every single one of them inside his chest. Their lions too, thrumming like bass drums through each of them, thrumming in his own chest and he can feel Black like wings spreading out into eternity against his back to either side. The potential is limitless.

But - Keith isn’t there? And…. Allura is? And before anything can happen they’re already fading. As if he was the power boost they needed for something and his addition freed them to continue. He wants to reach for them, grab at them, but his body doesn’t move. And they’re vanishing in flashes of light like fish through water. He fastens on the one he’s sure will be able to hear him because he’s the paladin that’s always listening -

“Lance! Lance, you have to listen to me - ”

He has to warn them.

Except he hears Lance’s voice raised on a question and then he’s gone too.

And the lights flare out just as quickly, pulling the energy and intimate feeling of closeness from each of his team out of his chest in the blink of an eye.  
Gone.

He drops to his knees and tilts his face to the broken sky. Screams his lion’s name.

But there’s nothing.

And they took all his energy with them when they left.

He inhales and exhales, chest heaving, catching his breath back and - feels good.

It feels so good. He knows what that loss of energy means, knows the fulfillment of it, whatever they’d needed - they’d still been able to find him to achieve it. He’s not out of the fight yet. He can still connect with his team. But he still balls his left hand into a fist and hits it lightly against his thigh and shuts his eyes. Because -

close. He was so close.

He had been so damn close.

For a very long time, he kneels there, pulling everything back inside of himself, letting the quiet settle back in his ears, before he finally straightens and get slowly back to his feet. Turns in a circle until he finds the distant doorway to the coffee shop. Exhaling all the air out of his lungs and then he sucks it back in before starting his walk back to it. Because -

he can do this. He could connect with Black. He could connect to the rest of his team. Maybe - he could connect to Keith as well. Because Shiro refuses to, for more than the first panicked heartbeat, accept that anything might have happened to Keith. He has to still be with the team. Shiro would know if anything had happened to him? He would. Wouldn’t he?

The only way to find out, and to make things right again, is to get back. Shiro has options. He just needs to figure out how to get them to work.

He is going to need a lot more coffee.


End file.
